The last couple of weeks I have been playing around with VMware vCenter Site Recovery

Manager 5 in my home lab after attending the vCenter Site Recovery Manager: Install,
Configure, Manage course. As you all probably know, SRM is an end-to-end disaster recovery
product that automates the recovery of VMs that reside on replicated LUNs. The version 5
of SRM comes with vSphere Replication (VR for short) which is a technique that copies the
VMs from one host to another. In the next blog posts I will give you a quick start tutorial of
SRM 5 with VR.
Lab Setup
As you can see in the drawing below, I have built 2 sites for testing purposes, Site A is the
Protected Site and Site B is the Recovery site.

The installation process of SRM 5 is quite straight forward but the database and the ODBC
connection must be set up first.

Database
Before the installation you have to create a database and an ODBC connection for the
deployment of SRM 5. I used the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express which was installed
during the vCenter Server installation. Make sure you have the SQL Management Tools
installed on your system.
1. Before creating the database, open the SQL
Server Configuration Manager and under the
SQL Server Network Configuration
-> Protocols, edit the properties of TCP/IP.
Make sure that all IP addresses are active and
enabled. Verify that no TCP Dynamic Ports are
assigned and the default TCP/IP port is set to
1433. Check Windows Firewall if TCP port 1433
is allowed for inbound connection.

2. Start the SQL Server Management Studio and edit the properties of the SQL Server. Select
Security and set the Server Authentication to SQL Server and Windows Authentication
mode. Click OK to save the settings, exit the SQL Server Manager and restart the SQL
Server Service.
3. Open the SQL Server Management Studio again, right click on Database and select New
Database. Provide a suggestive name (i.e. SRMBD) and leave all setting to default. Click
OK to create the database.
4. Next, create a user account that will be accessing the SRM database. Go to Security and
right click Logins, select New Login. Provide a suggestive name (i.e. srmadmin), set the
authentication to SQL Server and provide a password. Un-check the Enforce password
expiration option. Select Server Roles in the left side pane and verify that Public is
selected. Proceed to User Mapping and select your SRM database created in step 3. Make
sure DB_Owner and Public are selected as the database role membership. Click OK.
5. Go to your SRM database, expand Security, right click Schemas and select New Schema.
Enter a name for the schema (Note: the schema name must be the same as the database
user name, in this case: srmadmin) and enter the name of the user created in step 4. Click
OK.
6. Next, expand the Users under Security of your database. Edit the properties of the user
account created in step 4 (i.e. srmadmin) and change the default schema to the one
created is step 5. Click OK and close the SQL Server Management Studio.

ODBC Connection
SRM 5 uses 32-bit ODBC connection. You can open the odbcad32.exe from the %SystemRoot
%SysWOW64 folder.
1. In the ODBC Data Source Administrator, select System DSN and click on the Add
button. Scroll down and select the SQL Server Native Client. Click Finish.
2. Provide a name for the data source (i.e. SRM) and select the server from the pull down
menu. Click Next.
3. Change the authentication to SQL Server and provide the username and password
created in step 4 of the database creation (i.e. srmadmin). Click Next.
4. In the next window, change the Default Database to the one created in step 3 of the
database creation. Click Next.
5. Leave all settings to default and click Finish.
6. Click on Test Data Source to test the connection to the database. Click OK to close
the ODBC Administrator.
The environment is now ready for SRM 5 installation. Repeat these steps for the Recovery
Site.

In the previous part I created a database and an ODBC connection for the deployment of SRM
5. In this part we will focus on the installation process of SRM 5 which is quite straightforward

if all of the prerequisites are met. After the installation we will have to download and enable
the VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager Extension plug-in for administration of SRM 5.
Installation
1. Login to the vCenter Server, locally or through RDP, on the Protected Site and start the
installation wizard.
2. Click Next and Next again. Accept the EULA and click on Next.
3. Accept the default installation folder or change it if you like. Click Next to proceed.
4. Select Install vSphere Replication and click Next.

5. Provide the vCenter Server credentials for the Protected Site and click Next to proceed.

6. Accept the Security Warning and select Automatically generate a certificate in the
Certificate Type Selection window. Click Next to proceed.
7. Enter the Organization name and Unit in the Certificate Generation window. Click Next.

8. Fill in the required information in the VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager Extension
window. In the Local Site Name, make sure you provide a suggestive name so you can
easily track it back if necessary. Provide an e-mail where administrative alerts and
notifications will be send (mandatory). Select the IP address from Local Host drop down
menu and click Next.

9. In the Database Configuration window, select SQL Server as the Database Client. For the
Data Source Name, provide the name of the ODBC connection created in step 2 of the
ODBC connection setup and the credentials of the database user (i.e. srmadmin) created
in step 4 of the database setup. Click Next to start the installation.

10. Wait until the installation is completed and you are done!
Repeat the steps above for the vCenter Server in the Recovery Site.
Next step is to download and install the vCenter Server SRM Manager Extension plug-in.